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Tropicana, Atlantic City

City plan for BQE fix is less clean and less green

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper
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dlandstudio
OK, so this probably won't be happening. But the city is still hoping to beautify the BQE trench.

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In this case, the cover up is not worse than the crime.

The Bloomberg Administration officially issued a long-awaited call this week for engineers to minimize the pollution and unsightliness of the one-mile trench of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that ripped Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens from the Columbia Street Waterfront District and Red Hook 50 years ago.

To fix the so-called “Ditch,” the city is seeking “green planted buffers … new street light fixtures, new street furniture, such as decorative trash receptacles or seating, sidewalk repair and re-alignment, and, other special elements such as pedestrian/bicycle improvements,” the Economic Development Corporation said a statement.

The EDC’s dream of a spruced up BQE was first reported in The Brooklyn Paper last November, but this week’s call for proposals is far less ambitious than a prior dream of decking over the excavated interstate for new housing.

The new parameters also make it unlikely to implement a visionary design by local firm dlandstudio, which called for improved pedestrian crosswalks and new public parks on slabs above the highway.

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

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